Lacey Verhalen ~ Keywords: delirious horseshoeing, folk medicine, subplots, pharmakon, placebo, electuaries, speculative fiction, enmeshment, promiscuous therapy, enchantment, diffusion, shams, charms, charlatans

Lacey Verhalen (US) is an interdisciplinary artist working between text, image, object, and event. Her work reflects an ongoing exploration of fantasy and reciprocity in therapy. Recurring in her work are themes of placebo and transference as treatment, topics that challenge the limits of epistemological legitimacy in medicine. A broad range of interests feed this investigation, notably delusions of care, biochemical relationality, ecological immunity, deception, and animistic psychology. Much of her research is framed by the deconstructionist notion of the pharmakon. Anchored in ambiguity, her use of fiction, theory, herbs, and ornament traces the entangled contours of poison and remedy.

She holds a BA from the University of Washington (2014). After graduating her work centered on experimental publishing and metalwork applied arts before moving to the Netherlands in 2016. Additionally, she has studied at Pratt Fine Arts Center (2015), Open Set Lab (2016, Memories of the Future), Hackers & Designers (2017 & 2018), Saas Fee Institute of the Arts (2018), the University of Amsterdam (2019, Theatre Studies) and the Dutch Art Institute (2020-2022, MA Art Praxis). 

Lacey Verhalen has given talks and workshops at Free University (Berlin), Institute of Sound and Vision (Hilversum), OT301 (Amsterdam), Spike (Berlin), and Gessnerallee (Zurich).

Learn more about Lacey Verhalen's 20 minute performance hit or miss for 'tuttə (le) rottə - all (the) ways: unfixed' ~ DAI's Aeroponic Acts 2022 at Centrale Fies in Italy. 

Learn more about Lacey Verhalen's written MA thesis (DAI, 2022): Wayward Remedies: Pharmakological Medicine Beyond Bounds

Follow Lacey's "Life after DAI" via Instagram